


Romantic Notions

by lea_hazel



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Sunless Sea
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Exile, Fallen London Spoilers, Gen, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene, Multi, Scandal, The Shuttered Palace (Fallen London), Venderbight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 09:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6560959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lowly zailor and a starving artist walk into a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romantic Notions

He first met the Vivacious Fantasist at a dockside bar that he habitually frequented whenever the burden of the weeks and months at zee became too much. When sleep eluded him he knew he only had a few days at port before he zailed out again, following his captain to heaven-knows what God-forsaken hole, this time. The Elder Continent, most likely, or Irem. He wouldn't put anything past that madman. The Captain did not like drunk zailors and so he saw fit to fortify himself against the horrors of the zee. Extravagantly, if possible.

Pay was meager despite the danger and his Captain's particular reputation. She was just another Veilgarden dilettante of the kind who liked to amuse themselves by _descending_ to the docks from time to time, but she said she was buying and he'd never refused a free drink in his life. As she became progressively more intoxicated she got to bragging, although no one could have possibly done even half the things she laid claim to.

Artists in the city were not above picking pockets or swindling the gullible, and perhaps she had even managed to sweet-talk her way into the Ambassador's Ball without getting thrown out on her ear. It was hard to swallow, though, the idea that the constabulary turned to an out-of-work actress to help solve cases, let alone that they paid for her detective work. He did not believe for a moment that she cleared a nest of sorrow spiders, nor even that she'd seen one in person. Of course she claimed that the experience left her unmarked because she was "too pretty for scars".

She was lively as her reputation up until she stumbled into a drunken sleep, resting against a corner table and snoring lightly. Not before she turned her bragging from her past exploits to future ones. These he dismissed just as readily, and expected to forget both her face and her name, if ever he knew it, within a week at the most. He was not entirely mistaken, and so it took him a moment to place her within his hazy recollection, when she ambled up to his Captain not a month later, asking for passage to the Tomb Colonies.

"It's quite urgent," she said blithely. "I'm afraid the press is after me. I haven't even had time to pack! Oh, I wonder what will become of my hats. No matter, I'm sure this whole affair will be forgotten in no time. Don't you agree?"

He might have privately agreed -- her question, of course, was not addressed to him -- knowing how slight a concern could lead to such an exile. Tempers were high and fine in the Shuttered Palace, and far too delicate to withstand a flirtatious pulp novelist with an agenda. He was destined to reverse this verdict almost immediately. While the ship was being loaded with casks of wine, the dockmen were so kind as to share in the latest gossip, which their Captain was always eager for. Did the light-ship workers and the warrior nuns really starve to hear about scandals and fashion?

Disgraced but not discredited, she spent most of the short trip hanging off the side railing and distracting the zailors. She asked questions incessantly and regarded everything she saw as a source of amusement, no matter how dangerous. When a swarm of zee-bats was sighted she squeaked in delight. The Captain sternly ordered her to her cabin. She alighted at dusty Venderbight, but not before she had a chance to thoroughly examine the ship, the Captain's maps, and some of the crew. On disembarking she lamented that she would not be able to see a lifeberg with her own eyes.

Wiser than he was, he expected he would hear her spoken of soon enough, if his Captain didn't get him killed beforehand on one of his harebrained schemes-- pardon, _daring enterprises_. On that account, he was not so far off the mark. Even as they pulled him from the wreckage, hissing and spitting, he could not explain what had possessed the late Captain to aggress a dreadnought from the Iron Republic. He learned later that there were no survivors but himself and the gunnery officer. The latter was disturbingly eager to zet zail again, not seeming the least bit rattled by the experience.

When next they met, they had both gone up quite a bit in the world. The late Captain's family, if he had one, had disappeared to the wind, leaving him to claim his house as well as his ship. His chart, so painstakingly put together, had been lost in the wreckage, and so he began planning several cautious exploratory missions to mark on his own map. The Audacious Fantasist had gained all the notoriety she could wish, culminating in the magnificently disastrous expulsion that brought her knocking on his door.

"Just to plan," she said mysteriously in response to his unasked question. Was that Parabola linen she was wearing?

"You're making quite a name for yourself as well," she added, "aren't you, _Captain_?"

He acknowledged the compliment, but cautiously.

The cannoneer greeted her with the disquieting enthusiasm he usually reserved for explosives. She wandered the deck at her leisure, now and then running her hands along the railing almost possessively. He wondered if she intended to cut a swathe through his crew as she had once before, or whether her newly-discovered notability precluded liaisons with workaday zailors. Not fit material for a Gothic romance, he suspected, although how he knew or remembered her stock in trade, he couldn't say.

She entertained the crew with extravagant imaginings of her plans for the future, once this ' _little matter_ ' was resolved and she was back in the bosom of society, to resume establishing herself as the most notorious party guest in the city. Too many of her earlier exaggerations proved too close to fact for him to discount her entirely, even when she declared herself to be a noted archaeologist, or claimed intimacy with the Topsy King. He could very well imagine that she was close to becoming Imperial artist in residence.

"A governorship, though," she said dreamily on the last evening, with the lights of Venderbight already winking on the dark horizon. "Wouldn't _that_ be something?"

He pitied the Empire, rather.

"You'll be bringing me back to town in a matter of days," she said later, and he was certain that she was right.

It was a brief voyage to Codex on behalf of the Admiralty. They looped back through Gaider's Mourn, lanterns low, and slid into port in the small hours of the night. He was not surprised in the least to find a letter waiting for him the next morning.

"She asked for you by name," said the bandaged courier.

He had only enough time for a profitable jaunt to the Vengeance of Jonah, and no plans to spend any longer in the place than absolutely necessary. If she could keep to his timetable, he wrote, he had no reason to refuse her passage. No matter how he racked his brain.

"I'd need passage to Port Carnelian, of course," she said confidently, within minutes of boarding. "I don't suppose you've been?"

He flinched a little. "Nearest I've sailed is the Iron Republic," he said, taking care not to mention that one other place.

She looked almost disappointed. "I'd been hoping we could have another little lark together, haven't you? Once I'm governor I suppose I'll have to act accordingly."

He suppressed a bark of ugly laughter that threatened to bubble up.

The Infamous Fantasist raised an eyebrow at him. "I'll have to book passage with one of the _bolder_ captains, I suppose."

He agreed politely.

A sudden spark rose in her eyes, and he felt a deep uneasiness take over him when she trailed her fingers over the cabin wall.

"Say," she said, turning back to him, "how much does one of these things cost?"

He was staring, he knew that much. Staring at a lady was rude, irrespective of her wits or soundness of mind. Suddenly the uttermost East didn't sound so bad.


End file.
